Is Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:VNDA) Expensive For A Reason? A Look At The Intrinsic Value

Simply Wall St
November 22, 2018

Today I will be providing a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:VNDA) as an investment opportunity
by estimating the company’s future cash flows and discounting them to their present value.
I will be using the
discounted cash flows (DCF)
model.
It may sound complicated, but actually it is quite simple!
Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model.
If you are reading this and its not November 2018 then I highly recommend you check out the latest calculation for Vanda Pharmaceuticals by following the link below.

The model

We are going to use a two-stage DCF model, which, as the name states, takes into account two stages of growth. The first stage is generally a higher growth period which levels off heading towards the terminal value, captured in the second ‘steady growth’ period.
To start off with we need to estimate the next five years of cash flows.
For this I used the consensus of the analysts covering the stock, as you can see below.
I then discount this to its value today and sum up the total to get the present value of these cash flows.

5-year cash flow estimate

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

Levered FCF ($, Millions)

$26.50

$45.50

$68.00

$110.50

$128.18

Source

Analyst x2

Analyst x2

Analyst x2

Analyst x2

Est @ 16%, capped from 31.9%

Present Value Discounted @ 12.39%

$23.58

$36.02

$47.89

$69.24

$71.46

Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= US$248m

We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after the five years.
For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of the GDP. In this case I have used the 10-year government bond rate (2.9%). In the same way as with the 5-year ‘growth’ period, we discount this to today’s value at a cost of equity of 12.4%.

The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next five years and the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value,
which in this case is US$1.0b.
To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding, or the equivalent number if this is a depositary receipt or ADR.
This results in an intrinsic value of $19.58.
Compared
to the current share price of $23.88, the stock is
fair value, maybe slightly overvalued
and not available at a discount at this time.

NasdaqGM:VNDA Intrinsic Value Export November 21st 18

Important assumptions

Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual cash flows.
If you don’t agree with my result, have a go at the calculation yourself and play with the assumptions.
Because we are looking at Vanda Pharmaceuticals as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighed average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt.
In this calculation I’ve used 12.4%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.34. This is derived from the Bottom-Up Beta method based on comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business.

Next Steps:

Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and it
shouldn’t be the only metric you look at when researching a company.
What is the reason for the share price to differ from the intrinsic value?
For VNDA,
I’ve put together
three
fundamental
factors
you should
further research:

Future Earnings: How does VNDA’s growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart.

Other High Quality Alternatives: Are there other high quality stocks you could be holding instead of VNDA? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

PS. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow for every stock on the NASDAQ every 6 hours. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just
search here.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.

Simply Wall St is a financial technology startup focused on providing unbiased, high-quality research coverage on every listed company in the world. Our research team consists of equity analysts with a public, market-beating track record. Learn more about the team behind Simply Wall St.

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